Sweet, In a Grumpy Sort of Way
by ChinamiMorimoto
Summary: It's been just shy of thirty years since Jack died, the world has moved on, and in some ways, so has Ennis-but in plenty of other ways, he really hasn't. When Jack's granddaughter shows up, looking to find out about her grandfather and looking very much like a female version of him, Ennis is pulled out of his comfort zone. There is just something about those Twists.
1. Chapter 1

Ennis had moved around a lot, just about swore he'd lived in every town in Wyoming that was home to more than three horses. He finally wound up in one of the two towns called Signal Hill, the one up near the Montana border not far from Lightning Flat. On the rare occasions he actually thought about it, that was probably part of why he'd stayed there. He still worked, barn boss at a pretty nice riding school. Some weekends he worked horse shows the school was part of. Other weekends he stayed home, did nothing. It was one of these empty weekends in May when a knock at the door drew Ennis away from what he was watching on public television. He opened the door to see a young woman with dark brown hair and light greyblue eyes standing on his doorstep, a backpack slung over one shoulder. She looked vaguely familiar.

"What do you want?"

"Um, I," she tucked a bit of hair behind one ear. "I'm looking for a Mr. Ennis Del Mar."

"Yeah? What for?"

"Well, I was wondering if he, or uh, you, or that is you, right?"

Ennis crossed his arms. "Not if you're from the IRS, I'm not."

She laughed slightly nervously. "Oh, no, no, no, nothing like that."

"Then, yes, thats me."

"Well, then, I was wondering if you might be interested in—"

He cut her off, "Anything you've got, I'm not buying," and started to close the door.

"I'm not selling anything."

"I don't have any money for you."

"I don't want your money."

"I have not got a moment to learn about Jesus."

"I haven't been to church in fifteen years."

Ennis paused and let the door swing fully open again. "Then what are you here for."

"I want to talk to you."

"What for?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm a college student and I'm taking classes over the summer. For one of my classes I'm having to write basically the life story of one of my relatives whom I don't personally know. I decided to write about my grandfather, but it's turned out to be a lot harder than it sounds 'cause he never really wrote anything down..." She shrugged. "One of the only things I found is a handful of old postcards back and forth with a Mr. Ennis Del Mar. So, I was hoping you'd be willing to talk to me an' help me."

Ennis took a breath, eyeing the young woman on his doorstep, starting to figure why she looked familiar. "Who was your grandfather?" he asked slowly.

"Jonathan Carter Twist, the second. Went by Jack."

Ennis felt as though he'd swallowed ice.

"Did you know him?" the woman, Jack's granddaughter, asked carefully.

Ennis mentally shook himself. "Yeah. Yeah, I knew 'im."

She smiled just a little. "Would you help me?" She shifted the backpack on her shoulder.

"Why can't you ask your grandmother or something?"

She looked down a bit. "My grandma don't remember real reliably anymore. She remembers her stories and she tells them over and over, but I don't know how true any of them are. Half the time, she don't know who I am."

"Oh." Ennis hesitated, uncomfortable and unsure what to do. He met the girl's eyes—they were just like Jack's. He felt he should have realized sooner who she must have been, it was clear just by looking at her—her eyes, her hair color, the shape of her face, even the way she stood—that Jack's blood ran in her veins. "I figure I can probably help you out. Uh," he stepped aside a bit, "come in I guess. What's your name?"

She stepped in past him. "Jackie. Well, Jaquelin."

"Twist?"

She nodded. "Yup."

"Named after your grandfather?"

She smiled. "I am."

"So I guess Bobby's your father."

"That's right."

Ennis closed and locked the door then lead Jackie through the single wide trailer to what passed for his living room and turned off the T.V. He gestured at a chair and she sat, setting her bag at her feet. He sat across from her without a clue what he was doing. "So..."

She smiled. "So, uh, well, thanks. Don't worry, I just need you to talk. Would you mind if I recorded our conversation?"

"Naw, that's fine."

She pulled a tape recorder or some such out of her bag and turned it on.

"So, just start talking?"

"Pretty much."

"I uh don't normally talk much."

"Well then I really appreciate you talking to me then."

"Yeah, you're welcome. Uh, where should I start?"

"How about with how you and my grandfather met?"

"Right." He took a deep breath. "Well, it was the summer of '63. I'd signed on with this work program that wound me up working for this operation up on Brokeback Mountain."

"Where's that?"

"Up north of Signal Mountain." She nodded and he continued. "Well, your grandpa, Jack, wound up working for the same operation. Told me he'd worked for the same fella up on the same mountain the year before. We met in the parking lot outside the boss's trailer office. Didn't say a word to each other 'til the boss, Joe Aguirre, showed up, gone in, gotten everything explained, and come back out. Course, he talked first, introduced himself. I introduced myself. He said he figured that if we'd be working together, we'd best start drinking together." He settled back in his chair. "So we did. There was a bar down the street so went, had a few beers, talked. He told me about working on the mountain with the sheep the year before. Think I forgot to say it was a sheep herding operation a minute ago. Anyway, he had a feather in his hatband, said it was from an eagle he'd shot on the mountain the last summer. I didn't believe 'im. Found out later he really was that good a shot."

He went on describing that summer, the weather, Jack's bitching, Aguirre being a jerk. Most everything—except that which, now Jack was gone, was Ennis's business alone.

"Snows came real early, in August, so the summer ended sooner than anybody thought." He sighed. "That lost us a month of pay. We were both pissed, got into a fight, he damn near broke my nose. Well, we got all the sheep down, after that, nothin' to do but head home in opposite directions." Ennis glanced at the clock on top of the T.V. "That's a good place to stop an' it's gotten late."

"Oh, wow, it has." Jackie said looking up at the clock and shutting her recorder off. It was almost six o'clock. "I didn't realize I'd been here so long." She stood and slipped her recorder and the notebook she'd been jotting things in into her backpack. "I'll leave you to your evening. Can I come back tomorrow?"

Ennis nodded; he had stood as well. "Yeah, no problem. You gonna go get yourself some dinner?"

She smiled; god she looked like Jack. "That was the plan."

"For your own sake, don't go to the diner on the corner of the next street. More likely than not you'll be sick if you do."

"Thanks for the warning." She paused. "Actually, since I'm sure you know your way around the local eateries, why don't you come with me, show me the ropes?"

Ennis chewed his thought a moment, glanced at Jackie smiling hopefully at him, and sighed. "Alright, fine."

They walked to a different diner together and sat at the counter. Upon noticing the jukebox in the corner, Jackie stood, went over, loaded it up with three dollars worth of songs, and sat back down. Ennis already had coffee in front of him. "So," he said quietly, "you like music?"

"Mhm."

The waitress came over and took Jackie's order.

"You know, your grandfather played harmonica. Not real well but he did." Ennis smiled slightly.

"That's cool. I took piano lessons when I was little but I quit 'cause I sucked. Tried to learn violin instead. That went better."

Ennis sipped his coffee. "I never had time or money for any a that. Probably wouldn't have been any good if I'd tried, though, so it doesn't matter."

Their food came and Jackie gladly dug into her waffle. Ennis looked at her over his sandwich. "You're eating a waffle at six at night?"

"Yeah." She swallowed. "Waffles are good."

Ennis shrugged; she had a point.

Another song came on and, upon catching some of the words, Ennis paused. "What's this song?"

Jackie swallowed a bite of waffle. "_Need You Now_ by Lady Antebellum." She grinned slyly and jokingly. "Remind you of somebody?"

"Mm, yeah."

Her grin turned into a warm smile. "That's sweet."

He shrugged but smiled.

Closing the door behind him once he got home, it occurred to Ennis that Jack had never gotten to know Jackie, never gotten to meet her, but Ennis, in telling her about Jack, did. He thought Jack would have wanted that. He thought of his own grandkids. If things were the other way around and Katlin—Junior's oldest girl who was just a bit younger than Jackie seemed to be—had shown up at Jack's doorstep, he thought he'd want Jack to talk to her. If things were the other way around, he knew Jack would have talked to her.

**A/N: This story is totally written as I post this first chapter and I am very happy with it. I hope everybody who reads it likes it too. This chapter and most of the rest of the story takes place in May of 2012. Ennis is 68 years old.**

**Any comments or questions are appreciated and I'll do my best to answer any and all questions.**

**Happy fic-ing!**


	2. Chapter 2

Jackie came over the next day, expected this time, and Ennis continued telling her about Jack, starting with 1967, four years after the summer on the mountain, quickly explaining that he and Jack had each gotten married in between and had kids. Ennis was surprised by how much he enjoyed talking to Jackie. She was interested in what he had to say and appreciated it. She smiled and laughed at the funny things and frowned at the bad. It was like—it was a lot like talking to Jack.

"So after I got divorced, he drove up to see me, totally unannounced. Turned up the one weekend that month I had my girls with me so I had to send him home. After that, things went on like they had since '67: we'd see each other every couple months or so, go campin', fishin', huntin'." He shrugged. "In '79 or so he said something to me about having started seeing some rancher's wife." Jackie's eyebrows went up and Ennis snorted. "Yeah, he said he kept expecting to get shot by the husband or your grandmother, one."

Jackie couldn't help but laugh at that and it made Ennis smile. He continued. "Sometime 'round then he took a trip to Mexico; I dunno how long or why he claimed to have gone but I know he really went to sleep around."

"I see." Jackie jotted something in her notebook, failing in an attempt to keep from smiling.

"I'm tellin' ya, your grandfather was a layabout. He good as told me so; bit of a bastard, too. And like you, stubborn as hell but infuriatingly impossible to not like."

She laughed, then turned more serious. "You really think I'm like him?"

Ennis nodded. "Oh yeah. And I mean that as a compliment."

She smiled. "Thank you."

"You are welcome."

"Hey, you wanna go to dinner again?"

He paused, unsure. "Yeah, sure. I ain't got nothin' better to do."

As they stepped out of the trailer, the friendly atmosphere was shattered by three boys a little ways down the sidewalk, fighting. Two of them were beating up the third, who'd fallen to his knees.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" Ennis shouted, advancing toward the trio.

The two boys on their feet turned. One of them said, "He's a fag."

"He fucks guys," the other added with a disgusted sneer. They both had the air of explaining why they were killing a roach.

"Yeah, well is he tryin' to fuck you?" Ennis asked.

"Oh God no," the two bullies chorused at the same time their victim muttered, "Don't flatter them."

Ennis crossed his arms. "If he ain't tryin' to fuck you then it ain't none of your goddamned business and you had best leave be."

One of the boys looked at Ennis as if he had sprouted a second head. "That doesn't _bother_ you?"

Ennis looked him dead in the eye. "I have learned not to be bothered by what doesn't concern me; I suggest you both learn the same. I also suggest getting your sorry asses out of here 'cause I am not too old to kick them."

The two assailants scrambled off and Ennis helped the third boy to his feet. "You alright?"

The boy nodded and spat on the sidewalk; it was mixed with blood. "I'll be fine. Gotten worse from a goat before." He paused. "And thank you."

Ennis shrugged. "Stuff like that, it's your business, ain't nobody's place to give you hell for it. You got no control over who you feel for. I know that."

The boy nodded. Jackie, who had approached once the other boys left, offered him a bandaid. "You got a name?"

"Tom." He took the bandaid and put it on his elbow.

"You got a boyfriend, Tom?" Jackie held out three more bandaids, which he took.

"In California. Don't see him much."

There was a short silence while Tom bandaged the knuckles of hes left hand, then Ennis said something that surprised Jackie: "Tom, you wanna go to dinner with us?"

The dark haired young man paused then nodded. "Yeah, I would, thanks. Um, you two related?"

"I'm an old friend of her grandfather's. Ennis Del Mar." He held out his hand and Tom shook it.

Jackie introduced herself and the three of them went to dinner. Afterward, Ennis sent Tom home, admonishing him to stay out of trouble if he could, and to come by if he couldn't, then walked Jackie to her hotel.

"You were real sweet to him, in a grumpy sort of way."

"I do everything in a grumpy sort of way."

"I'm serious."

Ennis shrugged. "He can't help who he falls for, or the sort a person he tends to fall for. They aren't always the same thing but they've got that in common."

"You sound like you'd know."

"I do know." They stopped in front of the old Best Western. "I gotta work tomorrow but not till the afternoon so come in the morning."

Jackie nodded. "Any time that's too early?"

"If the sun's up, I've probably been up for an hour. Don't worry about it."

She laughed softly and bid him goodnight.

**A/N: Here we are, chapter 2!**

**I don't think there's anything that needs explaining here but ask me in a review if there's anything you aren't clear on. Any other comments, as always, are appreciated.**

**Happy fic-ing!**


	3. Chapter 3

The next morning, once they were settled in the living room, Ennis had only four years left to tell about. As it approached the summer of '83, the conversation slowed.

"I told him I couldn't get leave between then an' November even though we' been plannin' to meet up in August—if I took off I'd lose my job. Anything Jack needed was paid for by his wife's daddy. That man sure didn't like Jack, but if Lureen asked him, he'd a bought the moon. I didn't have nothin' like that and it had only been getting harder to find work so I couldn't afford to piss off my boss." He took a deep breath that sounded a bit shaky. "Couple months later I sent a post card saying it was gonna be November 'fore I could get off and," he paused. "And that postcard came back stamped deceased."

That statement hung undisturbed in the air a while before Ennis continued. "I didn't want to believe it, couldn't. I called up his wife, she told me what happened. That made it more real, which I hated. She told me where his folks were so I went up to see 'em. Father was a bastard but his mama was nice. He seemed to have gotten everything from her side of the family temperament wise. Didn't look a thing like either of 'em. Hell, maybe he was the milkman's baby, I dunno, probably not. I—His mama let me see his old room. She'd kept it for him like when he was little. That was nice. It seemed like his room, his stuff, you could tell. She told me when I left to come back to visit. I did a few times. That, that's it really." He took a breath and shrugged. Jackie nodded. Then followed a long silence.

The phone rang and Ennis went displeasuredly to answer it. It turned into a rather long call—something to do with horses—and Jackie found herself quietly trying to locate the bathroom. She opened a door and found, not a bathroom, but a closet, mostly empty with a postcard of what she knew without knowing how she knew was Brokeback Mountain tacked carefully at the corners to the back of the door above a nail from which two shirts hung, one inside the other, on a wire coat hanger, their sleeves on one side dark with decades old blood.

Jackie took a step back, feeling as though she had stumbled upon something sacred and private like a diary or someone praying or a shrine. A shrine.

Footsteps behind her made her turn. Ennis froze then strode around her and shut the door hard enough for the hanger to rattle audibly on its nail. "What are you—"

"I am so sorry, I didn't mean to, I was just looking for the bathroom, I am so so sorry."

They stood facing each other in the tiny hallway as a dozen things clicked together in Jackie's brain. Her eyes went wide. Ennis took a half step back. "What?"

"You, did you love him?"

Ennis reeled. "Did I _what_?"

"Did you love my grandfather?"

"Wha—Where did you get that idea?"

"It _really_ upset you when he died, I could tell when you were telling me about it. And despite everything for years and years you'd make time to see him whenever there was any way to. And how you dealt with Tom and those other boys, you _know_. You understand because you've been there. You've got a picture of a place you worked one single summer as a teenager. People don't have something like that unless it's important to 'em 'cause, like, they met somebody they love there. And those shirts, I know they mean something. One of them's his, ain't it? And the blood... That fight you told me you had, where he nearly broke your nose. That's what that's from, ain't it?"

Ennis made his way blindly to the nearest chair and sank into it. Jackie had followed and knelt next to him, hands on the arm of the chair. After quite some time, almost unable to believe the words were coming out of his mouth but unable to deny them, Ennis said, "Yes, I loved him. Goddamnit I still do." He took a deep shaky breath. "Didn't admit it even to me 'til he was long gone; never even came close to tellin' him."

Carefully, Jackie took one of Ennis's hands in both of her own. "I think he knew."

Ennis blinked at her. "Huh?"  
"Well, you say I'm like him, and I wouldn't keep sneakin' around to see some guy when I knew it was likely to be ugly if anybody found out about us unless I was damn well sure he loved me."

Ennis looked at her then pulled her into a hug. "I hope you're right."

Jackie hugged him back. "I bet I am." After a bit she pulled away from the embrace and took his hand again. "Can you tell me that part of the story?"

"I haven't ever told anybody..."

"It's okay." She squeezed his hand. "You don't have to tell me anything, but if you're willing, I'd like to hear."

He was quiet a moment. "If I'm ever gonna tell anybody, it's gonna be you."

**A/N: So that's chapter 3! I hope everybody likes the story so far.**

**Ennis's little thing with the postcard and the shirts has always reminded me of the little shrines you'll sometimes see in Japanese homes, just without the candles and incense. That's kind of what Jackie thinks of, too, when she has her little "ahah!" moment and puts 2 and 2 and 3 together to get 7.**

**I don't think there's anything else that needs explaining here but ask me in a review if there's anything you aren't clear on. Any other comments, as always, are appreciated.**

**Happy fic-ing!**


	4. Chapter 4

Jackie came over every morning of that week and Ennis told her the whole story over again but this time with his and Jack's secret romance included in the telling. It took until Saturday to finish.

"Well, there you have it. I'm pretty sure you an me are the only people alive who know all that."

Jackie shut her notebook. "You have lived a better love story than I have ever read." She shook her head and smiled, very nearly crying. "Thank you so much for telling me."

Ennis nodded and affectionately ruffled her hair. She grinned and brushed at her eyes. "Hey, Ennis?"

"Yeah?"

"Is it okay with you if I put in my paper what there was between you and my grandfather?"

Ennis hesitated. "Jackie, I don't know..."

"I could leave your name out."

He shook his head uncertainly.

"Ennis," she said softly.

He met her eyes.

"If you really don't want me to, I'll leave it out, leave it all out, won't write a word of it. But I feel like doing that would be a kind of disservice to Jack's memory."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," she looked down. "It isn't the full story. It's not really _his_ life without the love of his life in it."

Ennis sat back in his chair slowly. "I, I never thought of it that way."

She shrugged. "Grew up in Wyoming, met and married a nice girl, moved to Texas, had a kid, died in a freak accident. That's just some guy's story, could be anybody. Now, grew up in Wyoming, spent a summer working with a grumpy guy his own age, through some twist of fate falls in love with said grumpy guy, can't be with him so he goes off and marries this nice girl he met, moves to Texas, has a kid, meets back up with that guy he fell in love with, they keep seeing each other despite everything, gets killed 'cause some bastard couldn't leave well enough alone after figuring out he wasn't exactly straight but everybody gets told he died in a freak accident—_that_ is my grandfather. It's not the same story.

"You're right." Ennis sighed. "You couldn't be more right." He looked out the window in silence a short while. "Put it in your paper, tell his whole story, but leave my name out."

She nodded. "I will."


	5. Chapter 5

Jackie went home a few days later to Cheyenne. For some reason it made Ennis happy that the Twist family had settled back in Wyoming.

A couple months later in July, a large manila envelope turned up in Ennis's mail from Jackie. He went inside, the rest of the mail tucked under his arm, opening the manila envelope as he walked. Inside were two smaller envelopes and a three-prong folder. One of the envelopes was labeled "Open me first!" in looping not-quite-cursive that looked like a neater version of Jack's. Ennis opened the envelope to find a rather spangly Independence Day card. In addition to the printed message, Jackie had scrawled a note in the card.

_ I can hardly thank you for all that you've shared with me but I hope this will do._

_ My proffessor was impressed with what I've written about my grandfather but it _

_ matters more to me what you think, so I've included a copy. I haven't let my dad_

_read it yet—not sure what he'll think. Hope you had a happy fourth._

_Yours,_

_ Jackie twist_

She'd drawn a small heart next to her name. Ennis smiled and flipped open the folder, then took it and the second envelope to the couch. Neatly typed on the front page was Jack's full name, birth and death dates, and under that, in small type Ennis had to squint to read:

_For my grandfather,_

_and for the man who still loves him._

Ennis read the rest of the paper and found himself very nearly in tears by the time he reached the list of references which included "Jack Twist's lover, unnamed by own request." Jackie had dutifully written Jack's life story in full, from his upbringing in Lightning Flat to his summer on the mountain with Ennis, his marriage, his rodeo days, his son—everything. The official story of his death and what Ennis believed to be the truth. Even Jack's father's refusal to let Ennis carry out Jack's last wishes by scattering his ashes up on Brokeback. Nothing had been left out. It was as if she had written a ghost.

After sitting there a moment staring at the closed folder in his lap, Ennis opened the other envelope and dumped its contents—a pile of photos and another note—onto the couch cushion next to him. The note read:

_Didn't think you had any pictures._

_Thought you'd like some._

One photo had fallen out face down covering most of the rest. Picking it up Ennis could see they were a mix of black and white and color, some of them clearly copied from old newspapers, but every last one of them of Jack. Jack as a baby in his mother's arms; a little boy smiling from the back of a small paint mare; nine years old in front of a Christmas tree with a collie puppy in his lap; no older than fifteen in a yearbook picture from his freshman year of high school; newspaper picture from three years later showed him beeming with joy having just one the belt buckle he'd worn most of the time Ennis had known him. There was a picture of him dressed up for what most have been his own wedding, bottle of beer in one hand, smiling over his shoulder at whoever had the camera; and quite a few of him with Bobby over the years.

Now Ennis did cry, hugging the photos to his chest. It made the place in his heart Jack had filled hurt to see him young and happy, but it mad Ennis glad to have the pictures. More glad than he knew how to say.

He wrote a letter to Jackie, thanking her and saying he thought her paper was great, dropped it in the mail, then took a couple days off and drove up to Lightning Flat. He'd been to Jack's home town plenty of times, but not since Jack's mother had passed away in the '90s. Despite visiting once or twice a year for just over a decade, he had never once been to Jack's grave. He went there now.

Jack's grave, along with his parents', grandparents', and uncle's, was in a fenced in corner of the cemetery out behind the white washed little Pentecostal church. There was a small gate set into the fence. It was open and Ennis went in, stopped in front of Jack's stone, and stood there a while. He hadn't brought flowers; instead he fished a out of his pocket a very small bottle of whiskey and set it on the corner of the ledge that ran around the base of the stone. He figured Jack would appreciate it more than a bunch of plants that'd be dead in less than a day under the summer sun.

With a sigh, Ennis sat on the grass, leaned back against the sunwarmed stone and closed his eyes. There wasn't anyone around and a soft breeze rustled the grass and the leaves on the nearby trees. It felt a lot like it had on the mountain.

Ennis sat there a long time, found himself humming "King of the Road"—Jack's favorite song. He sighed, leaned his head back, and smiled. "Jack fuckin' Twist..."

**A/N: Well that's it. I cried writing this last chapter. I normally don't cry while writing unless I'm killing a character off. I'm quite happy with this story. It has my favorite ending I've ever written.**

**I have a vague idea of a kind of sequel to this that would focus more on now grown Bobby.**

**Anyway, put any questions or comments in a review.**

**Happy fic-ing.**


End file.
